


Afterlives

by attackamazon



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Blackmail, Brotherhood of Steel (Fallout), Choices, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Family, Flash Fic, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Loyalty, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Sacrifice, Sexual Coercion, corrective rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 19:58:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attackamazon/pseuds/attackamazon
Summary: Nora has stopped trying to make any sense of her life in the post-War Commonwealth, taking every fresh wave of hell as it comes and focusing on preparing for the Brotherhood's final assault on the Institute instead.  When Arthur Maxson discovers that his most reliable officer is still visiting the exiled Paladin Danse in secret, though, the Brotherhood leader takes it upon himself to "save" her from her delusions and that leaves Nora with a nightmarish choice.  What, exactly, is she willing to do to keep Danse safe?Now with Podfic!





	Afterlives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a flash fic challenge, so if the editing is not quite up to usual par, that's why. The plot bunnies demanded that this happen. Blame them.
> 
> ***WARNING: There is non-con in this story. Oh, boy, is there non-con. If you're likely to be triggered by corrective rape, violence, and general abuse of power, please read carefully.****

“Paladin?”

Between the clattering racket of the nearby vertibirds, the newness of the promotion, and the weight of her own thoughts, it took Nora a moment to register that the voice was talking to her.  From her perch on the aft gantry of the open flight deck beneath the massive belly of the Prydwen, she glanced back to see a scribe waiting behind her. The young man gripped the platform rails nervously, but his stare of anxious hero worship could not be completely obscured by his obvious fear of heights.

She had developed something of a reputation in the Brotherhood.  She got results. She had a knack for getting information and solving difficult problems.  At least publicly, she kept her mouth shut and followed the rules chapter and verse. An exemplary member of the Brotherhood, they said.  The best of what it meant to be human. More than deserving of the rank of Paladin.

As far as Nora was concerned, though, there had been only one Paladin worthy of the title on the Prydwen.  The fact that he was gone and she was now - quite literally - filling his armor still seemed fundamentally wrong.

“Ma’am,” the scribe rapped out, pulling himself together now that he had her attention while simultaneously trying to avoid the sight of the stomach-churning drop beneath him. “Elder Maxson would like a word with you.”

Of course.  With preparations for the final assault on the Institute reaching the critical moment, the leader of the Brotherhood was working almost around the clock and all of his senior officers remained on standby night and day.  The wind could change in an instant and they had to be prepared.

Something about the timing of the summons, though, set off a warning in the back of Nora’s mind - a twitch of instinct honed razor sharp by the ruined, merciless world that she had woken up to almost a year ago now.  

Maxson had taken an interest in her from the start.  Danse had vouched for her and that alone was enough to get her noticed, but there was the propaganda factor as well.  She was a Pre-War Vault dweller, as pristine a human as it was possible to find in the wasteland, and she had chosen to side with the Brotherhood against the evils of the Institute and their synths.  A guardian ancestor from humanity’s glorious and infamous past. They couldn’t have asked for a better morale booster and recruitment tool.

The Elder - a humorous term to Nora since Maxson was even younger than she had been when she had been frozen - had spent hours interviewing her about life before the Great War.  They had become a tacit sort of friends during that time. There had been hints that the young leader wanted to explore that friendship further, but Nora had politely sidestepped the issue.  Privately, she suspected that their talks were more about ensuring that she was properly indoctrinated into the fold than anything. Maxson had thrown the Brotherhood’s resources behind her efforts to find her son, at least, and that was what had mattered at the time.

He was a true believer.  His fire-and-brimstone charisma and seemingly limitless energy for the work were impressive - even Nora, cynical as she had become, was not immune. Those traits, though, were precisely what concerned her now.  She had all but forced the uncompromising purist to compromise on one of his most ardent and central doctrines: the inhumanity and consequent destruction of synths. No matter how swiftly Maxson had refocused his attention in the aftermath of the dispute, there would be a reckoning for that one day.

From the way his intense gaze had settled on her when she had reported back to the Prydwen that morning, from the way he had silently watched her during the briefings thereafter, that day might have come.

She took one last look out over the murky shoreline and the ruined cityscape of the Commonwealth.  Briefly, with a rush of black humor, she entertained the notion of just stepping off of the gantry and plummeting to the oily sea below, but then turned to follow the scribe back into the orderly, claustrophobic comradery of the Brotherhood of Steel instead.

Maxson was seldom in a mood to be kept waiting.  Best to get it over with.

~~0~~

_“Your people know how to make an entrance, Danse, I’ll give them that.”_

_From the mouldering wreckage of Cambridge, the massive airship was a forbidding dark blotch on the horizon.   Nora stood on the crumbling steps of the old police station watching it maneuver with the flock of smaller vertibirds that attended the giant like a hive of deadly wasps.  An unlit cigarette dangled from her lips as she groped the pockets of her leather jacket for her lighter, waiting on Paladin Danse as he moved across the scarred concrete to join her.  The whir and clank of his power armor made him decidedly unstealthy, but stealth was not really part of Danse’ repertoire anyway._

_He had needed her for that.  And paid her well for it._

_“The Prydwen,” he agreed, smiling fondly at the distant craft.  “Always a sight for sore eyes.”_

_He turned his smile back down to her.  The Paladin looked a little scruffier, a little worse for wear, than when they had first met more than a month before, but the relief on his face was absolute.  His recon team had been stranded in the Commonwealth wasteland for months and the reinforcements that they desperately needed had finally arrived. His surviving soldiers were safe, at least for now, and he would be reporting back to the Prydwen within a matter of hours.  He was going home._

_It was strange to think that Danse would not be there when she next passed through.  She had grown accustomed to making the detour whenever she was nearby, exchanging news and supplies, taking a moment to good-naturedly tease the Paladin about never leaving his power armor even to sleep, and occasionally doing an odd bit of work that Danse could not spare his people to attend to.  In exchange, they had never begrudged her a safe place to sleep out of the open when she was in the area. The newly arrived Brotherhood soldiers were distinctly less friendly, eying her suspiciously from their posts even now._

_“You know,” Danse began slyly, as if they had not had the same conversation several times before, “you could see her up close.  The offer still stands until we move out.”_

_Nora snorted as she finally found her lighter and flicked it open, carefully igniting the cigarette and savoring a deep lungful of sweet nicotine before sighing it slowly back out._

_“You never give up, do you, Paladin?”  She watched the smoke disperse into the acrid air for a moment as she rolled the cigarette through her fingers. “Do I look like the soldiering type to you?”_

_“More and more every time I see you.”_

_It was a joke, but he wasn’t wrong.  Three months of prowling the Commonwealth had knocked the affluent suburban rust off of her and then some.  The last bit of baby weight was gone, melted away by hungry nights and long, violent days. Her nose was crooked, broken in her last fight, and there was a livid scar on her cheek where a piece of shrapnel had grazed her.  Her coppery hair, once impeccably coiffed, was now dry and ragged at the ends, haphazardly gathered back from her face. There were no fewer than five weapons strapped to her body and those were only the visible ones._

_Poor Nate would never have recognized her.  For him, she had played the pretty, sweet, supportive housewife, waiting patiently for her soldier to come home.  He had needed that from her to get through his deployment and, because she loved him, she had obliged. But that Nora - wrapped up in the homey, suffocating boredom of fundraisers, bridge nights, church potlucks, and homemade apple pies - had been a lie.  A lie that she had been prepared to make permanent with the unexpected surprise of Shaun, but a lie nonetheless._

_This thing that she had become - the hard, angry, chain-smoking, killing creature that stood staring out at the irradiated sunset next to Danse - was more honest than she had ever been in Sanctuary Hills._

_“I don’t have time for war games.  I need to find my son.”_

_“We can help you with that.  The Brotherhood has resources.  We have the same enemy.”_

_The Paladin shifted, turning to face her.  There was compassion in his dark eyes. He did not know the whole story, but he knew enough - her husband, her son, the Vault that had kept her frozen as a freakish relic of a dead world for 200 years.  Lying to Danse had never seemed worth the effort. It was clear, though, that he had more to say and he knew that there was a chance it would upset her._

_He would say it anyway.  Danse was honest, too, even - especially - when it was hard._

_“What if you never find him?  What then?”_

_“I will find him.”_

_The bitter snarl that the question dragged from her surprised even Nora with it’s sharpness.  Quickly, she reined back the sudden surge of anger, her face flushing with the effort. She closed her eyes for a moment before speaking again, letting her voice settle._

_“I don’t care where I have to go or what I have to do, Danse.  I don’t care who I have to kill. I will find my son. God help the Institute if I can’t, because I won’t be satisfied until I’ve taken every last one of them down with me.”_

_“And tearing the wasteland apart piece by piece, angry and alone, is better than accepting help from the Brotherhood?”_

_The corner of his mouth quirked upward in a sad smile.  Her eyes narrowed onto his, judging his intent. There was nothing but sincerity in Danse’s face and tone, though.  There never was. He nodded, a gesture to signal that he recognized and understood her suspicion._

_“Our victory and your vengeance can be the same thing.  The Institute needs to be destroyed. We can help you and we can make sure that no more families are torn apart the way that yours was at the same time.  When it’s over, the Brotherhood will still be there whatever the outcome. Something to fall back on. Something to keep you together and moving forward. Did you have a better plan in mind?”_

_As much as Nora hated to admit it, he had a point.  She had no plan. Only rage. Boundless, gnawing, frustrated, directionless rage.  What happened afterward - if there was an afterward - had never seemed important in light of the urgency of getting her baby back and making Nate’s murderers suffer._

_It had been a stupid mistake to kill Kellogg.  He had been her only lead, the only one that knew for certain where her son had been taken.  She should have kept the bastard alive and tortured it out of him if she had to, but the firefight had been too quick and deadly and her fury stoked too high by proximity to the monster that had killed her husband for her to focus on anything but ending him.  Nick Valentine might be able to help her salvage the situation, but Nora wasn’t holding out much hope._

_The Minutemen owed her, but they were still just a scattered rabble of settlers with crank-handle laser muskets and dreams of a peaceful existence._

_The Brotherhood, though - as evidenced by the Prydwen and the Knights in their power armor guarding the police station’s perimeter - were the only ones with the firepower, organization, and numbers to get the job done._

_She flicked away the ash from her cigarette in agitation and took a slow drag from it, her eyes still on Danse’s, considering and turning the options over in her mind._

_“What do you say?” the Paladin prompted, emboldened now, sensing victory._

_Danse wanted to secure her skills for the Brotherhood, but there was something personal in his repeated attempts to bring her on board, too.  She wasn’t blind to that. It was the same concern that he showed for Haylen and Rhys - the two surviving members of his recon team. The desire to see them improve themselves, to correct their path when they were in danger of veering too far off track, and to protect them.  After a month of working together off and on, Danse already saw her as one of his own. He was just waiting for her to admit it, too, and make it official._

_It might not be a terrible idea.  The Brotherhood of Steel sounded like a load of fanatics, but she couldn’t really fault their logic as Danse explained it.  The Commonwealth was a sack of cats that needed sorting out and everything she had heard about the Institute indicated that the sooner they were a smoking crater the better off everyone would be.  As far as she was concerned, the freaks - the ghouls, the supermutants, and the synths - were acceptable collateral damage._

_If she was willing to die, to kill, to ravage through anyone who got in her way just for the hope that she would find Shaun at the end of it, then what could the Brotherhood ask her to do that was any worse?_

_And, she had to admit, going it alone did not seem to be working out for her all that well._

_“If it means that I get to see the Institute burn,” she replied, making up her mind with a grim smile as she dropped the remains of the cigarette and ground it beneath her boot, “then, I say ‘ad victoriam’, Paladin.”_

~~0~~

“Come in.”

Maxson’s quarters were the largest on the Prydwen, but only because they doubled as his war-room.  There was no difference between on duty and off duty for the Brotherhood Elder and nothing homey or personal about his stateroom.  From the sitting area for briefings to the planning table and terminal desk to the simple steel-frame cot shoved into one corner, everything was meticulously clean, ordered, and functional.  The sole decoration was a battered Brotherhood of Steel flag tacked to one wall - a relic of some past battle placed for inspiration rather than aesthetics.

Nothing was left at a loose end where Maxson was concerned.  Nora had sussed this out about him from their first meeting. His sharp mind collected, tallied, and analyzed every detail.  Everything was made use of. Nothing went unregarded. As he stood from the desk and turned his severe grey gaze upon her, she could practically feel that sharp scrutiny rake her skin.

“You sent for me, Elder?” she asked, using her professional voice as she pressed her fist against her chest in salute.

Playing along with the Brotherhood protocols had been a tactical decision at first.  It cost her nothing to salute and keep her comments to herself. Over their acquaintance, Maxson had gradually relaxed the usual strictures of rank, encouraging her to speak freely on the occasions when they met one on one.  Her background and knowledge was unique and her opinions were useful to him, he said. It was a privilege that Nora rarely exercised.

She had come to appreciate the Brotherhood leader’s drive and passion.  There were times when she even liked him - moments here and there when his intense composure slipped enough for her to glimpse the young man beneath the rank and dogma.  There had always been something about Maxson that made her stay at arm’s length, though.

Especially after what had happened to Danse.

“Close the door, Paladin,” the Elder told her.

He did not sound angry, but his body language - the way he stood, the tension in his shoulders, the furrowed brow, and the angle of his bearded chin - told her that this would not be an easy conversation.  Nora obliged, closing the door and shutting out the noise and scurry of the mid-deck outside. She waited for the other boot to drop.

Maxson regarded her silently for a moment longer.  His expression was complex, as if he were weighing opposite ideas in his head.  At last, he seemed to decide something. He gestured to the sitting area to one side of the stateroom.

“It’s been some time since we’ve talked.  Sit for awhile.”

Not an unusual request, but there was a tone to it that made Nora’s spine prickle.  There was no use in hiding that uneasiness from Maxson, either. He would sense it. She forced a smile instead.

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d rather stand.”

She saw his heavy, dark eyebrows rise slightly, acknowledging the unsaid reason for her preference.  He did not insist. The Brotherhood leader clasped his hands behind him, relaxing his stance into a sort of parade rest - his definition of informality, she knew.

“Before we go any further, I want to be clear: this is not an official conversation.  You and I are not speaking as commander and subordinate here. We will not bring rank into this.  This will not be discussed outside of this room. You may speak your mind without fear of repercussion.  Do we understand each other?”

So, that was how he was going to play it.  As if there could be a conversation with Arthur Maxson that did not have repercussions.  Nora held her smile, although she could feel her pulse speed a little faster in her throat.

“Perfectly.”

~~0~~

_“That’s a terrible habit.”_

_The radioactive thunderstorm outside showed no signs of abating.  Cigarette poised between her fingers, Nora leaned back from where she sat on the second floor landing of the ruined building and arched a sarcastic eyebrow at Danse through the open doorway of the ratty apartment that would be their base camp for the night._

_He was no smoker - aside from the odd beer while off duty, he regarded such vices as an unnecessary distraction - and Nora obliged him by giving him space when she indulged in her addiction.  That did not prevent Danse from ribbing her about it occasionally. She tilted her chin up and hissed a slow, defiant stream of smoke between her lips like a dragon about to breathe fire._

_“I’m a terrible woman, Paladin, what can I say?”_

_Although he was her superior officer now, things were much the same as they had always been between her and Danse.  They had an understanding. She knew what the Paladin’s boundaries were and what was expected of her by the Brotherhood.  She did her best not to cross the lines and, in exchange, he did not hold her to the tight formalities of deference and address while they were working alone out in the Commonwealth.  It was easier that way for both of them._

_She finished her cigarette, making it last and savoring the calming buzz in the back of her brain.   Truth be told, she had cut back since joining the Brotherhood. In part, it was just good for business.  Smoking was forbidden on the Prydwen - too many enclosed spaces and volatile fumes Partially, though, she just seemed to need it less these days.  There was always something to do in the Brotherhood of Steel, something to keep her hands busy and her mind engaged. Despite her skepticism, the soldiering life was turning out to be curiously agreeable.  No one was more surprised about that than Nora._

_The Paladin shot her a reproving glance when she joined him in the dingy living room at last.  Their power armor stood along the far wall of the room and he had taken advantage of the forced rest to do some field maintenance, tightening screws and checking for loose connections._

_“You’re not terrible, Knight.  Insubordinate and stubborn, absolutely, but not terrible.”_

_She couldn’t help cracking a smile at that as she settled herself down onto the least rotten of the upholstered chairs._

_"Are you flirting with me, Danse?”_

_The startled look on his face was priceless.  She knew that he was easily flustered by such things and Nora grinned sweetly at him as he blinked at her, trying to recompose himself._

_“I don’t like it when you talk about yourself that way.  We don’t always see eye to eye and I know I bust your chops from time to time, but you learn from your mistakes.  You’ve proven yourself a good soldier - a good woman - when it counts. To me, anyway.”_

_He hesitated before continuing.  The look in his eyes when he glanced back up at her was concerned._

_“You’ve been quiet since the Memory Den.  Want to talk about it?”_

_Just the mention of the place sent a cold shiver down Nora’s spine.  She didn’t want to talk about it. She never wanted to think about what she had seen there again, but the memories were burned into her mind and they would not leave her alone.  Kellogg’s voice, his ghost, haunted her dreams. She could not shake the feeling that some part of him had impressed itself onto her - his afterlife, in a way._

_“We got what we needed.” She shrugged, attempting nonchalance. “Now we just have to figure out how to make it work.  What’s there to talk about?”_

_She was bluffing, though, and they both knew it.  On the night before they had set out into the Glowing Sea, they had bedded down in an abandoned house.  Nora had woken in the darkness, lungs gasping, her heart surging terror and impotent fury from a familiar nightmare.  Again, she had watched helplessly, trapped in the freezing confines of the cryo-chamber, as her baby was stolen and Nate murdered.  Only this time the scarred face that leaned in to smirk at her through the glass was her own. She had curled into a ball on her bedroll, burying her face hard into her rough blanket to silence miserable sobs as she shivered and wept._

_And then a hand had settled onto her shoulder - solid, warm, and real.  It had stayed there until she grew still again, anchoring her, reminding her that she was not alone._

_They had never spoken about it.  Nora could not look Danse in the face now, remembering.  She shook her head._

_“I’m fine, Danse.  I’m fit to fight. I’m not going to be a liability to the mission.  You don’t have to worry about me.”_

_“I’m not asking as your CO.”_

_She glanced up to see the Paladin stand and move over to sit in a rickety chair across from her.  It was always strange to see him out of his power armor. He was still formidable, tall and all lean muscle from years of hard training, but he still looked vulnerable sitting there in just his orange and white jumpsuit.  He leaned his elbows onto his knees, regarding her expectantly._

_It was not the first time that they had talked about such personal matters.  She had told him about Nate and Shaun and what it was like to confront Kellogg.  She had heard him talk about the Paladin that he had served under during his early days in the Brotherhood, a man who had been so hard on him in order to push him forward towards his full potential, and how much it had hurt to hear of his former commander’s death.  He had shared with her the story of his best friend Cutler and how he had been forced to kill his friend after a tragic exposure to the FEV virus._

_When he had placed so much trust in her, when it was clear that he just wanted to help, it felt unfair to refuse.  She had never been able to lie to him. Nora sighed._

_“It’s Kellogg.  I can’t get him out of my head.”_

_“Understandable.  I watched those memories with Dr. Amari.  It would be hard for anyone to forget.”_

_She frowned, shaking her head._

_“Not like that.”_

_She pressed her fingers to her forehead for a moment, trying to find the words to describe what had been beating at the back of her mind for the last few weeks._

_“I hated him.  I wanted him dead so badly, but now - I almost regret it.  Almost. His childhood - I know what that’s like. Mine wasn’t much better.  His wife and daughter were murdered. He massacred the people that hurt his family and then he kept killing, wandering the wasteland and getting worse and worse until I came along and did the same to him.  Strange, isn’t it? Like a disease spreading. I’ve killed so many people since I woke up in this hellscape. I lost count months ago. I wonder how long before it’s my turn to get a bullet in the neck from some angry survivor and the cycle starts all over again.”_

_“You aren’t Kellogg,” Danse insisted firmly.  “He was the one that put his family in danger.  What happened to yours wasn’t your fault. He could have stopped at any time, turned his life around, but he didn’t.  You’re not going to become that.”_

_His certainty almost made her believe it.  Nora smiled weakly._

_“Maybe.  Not with you looking over my shoulder like some steel-plated Jiminy Cricket, anyway.”_

_The Paladin smiled back.  Despite his businesslike, no nonsense demeanor, the man could light up a room with that smile.  She leaned back on the mildewed couch and regarded him, feeling a little less burdened. She exhaled deeply._

_“I wasn’t a good person in my last life.  You probably figured that out. Most upstanding citizens aren’t proficient at lock picking, hacking terminals, and cooking chems.  I swore it all off when Nate came along. He was too good, I loved him too much, to let him see that in me. He gave me a reason to be better, a reason to work toward a decent life.  I lost that for awhile after he was killed. Then you showed up, talked me into the Brotherhood, and started following me around - calling me on my bullshit and expecting me to step up my game.  One day, maybe I can return the favor.”_

_“You can thank me by taking care of yourself.  I don’t have so many friends that I can afford to lose one like you.  We’re a team.” His smile turned humorous. “Of course, now that you’re in thick with Elder Maxson . . .”_

_She groaned._

_Maxson did spend a good amount of time grilling her about the pre-War past as well as her thoughts on any number of other subjects when she was on board the Prydwen.  The interviews had become increasingly more personal of late. It wasn’t that she disliked him. He had a sharp mind and their conversations were stimulating. The challenge reminded her of her law school days while Nate was on deployment.  Maxson could even be charming at times. It was clear, though, that the Brotherhood leader wanted something more than information out of the time they spent together and Nora had an inkling of what that might be._

_“Don’t start.  Maxson’s impressive, I’m very honored, it’s a rare privilege, yes, fine.  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know what it is that he finds so fascinating, but he’s going to be disappointed if he wants more than just a scintillating conversation.”_

_Danse laughed at that.  More than one person on the Prydwen had noticed that Nora spent an unusual amount of time with Maxson when she was at base.  Only Haylen, grinning at her like some kid sister angling for gossip, had ever asked her about it. Danse could not have missed the rumors either, although he knew better._

_“Probably for the best.  We all need to stay focused on the mission.  I remember being his age, though. I wouldn’t blame him too much for taking an interest in you.  You do tend to turn a head or two wherever we go.”_

_Nora glanced up at Danse, her mouth quirking as she turned the banter back on him._

_“Now I know you’re flirting with me.”_

_Assure now that she was alright, the Brotherhood officer stood and moved back to his power armor to resume his checklist, casting a look of mock annoyance back at her as he went._

_“Watch yourself, Knight.”_

_“I’ll leave that to you and Maxson, Paladin.”_

 

~~0~~

“I’m concerned about you, Nora.”

Maxson’s stern demeanor eased a fraction as he addressed her, but Nora tensed at the sound of her name.  He liked to keep a clear distinction between business and personal conversations and she had humored him.  They had been on first name terms for awhile, but it had just never sounded right coming from Maxson. Especially now.

“I appreciate that, Arthur, but I’m fine.”

Her assertion did not convince.  His expression turned reproachful.

“Are you?  Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve been distracted.  Isolated. Distant from your brothers and sisters here. Your work is still excellent, but you’re not as focused as you were.  I’m not the only one who’s picked up on it. Knight-Captain Cade has recommended that you be screened for combat fatigue in light of your recent ‘sacrifice’ on behalf of the Brotherhood.”

“I thought we were done talking about Danse.”

The name seemed to fall like profanity on Maxson’s ears.  The Elder scowled for a moment, but held back a knee-jerk retort.  Nora sighed.

“Let’s not beat around the bush.  You know damn well why I’ve been distant.  What do you want, Arthur?”

“I want to help you.”

An incredulous laugh burst out of Nora’s mouth before she could stop herself.  She paced a few steps before cocking her head up at at Maxson again to see if he had actually delivered that trite sentiment with a straight face.

Of course he had.

Maxson stepped towards her, unclasping his hands.  Her disbelief had not phased him. His serrated expression remained.

“I know that you went to see that machine again.”

“Still tracking me, Arthur?”  She could feel the angry heat rising in her face, but her smile was still tight on her lips, just a little bit of her teeth exposed to the dry air. “What, are you afraid that I’m going to betray you?  Or is it just jealousy?”

The young man’s face reddened above his well-groomed beard.  She had always seen _that_ particular affectation for exactly what it was: a tactic to make himself seem older than his years.  His ego was stung. His glare was scorching, but he did not lash out at her. Maxson took a deep breath and continued.

“I know that this has been hard on you.  I do understand, Nora. I was fooled by that synth, too. I know that, worse than anyone else here, that thing got its mechanical claws deep into you and I hate seeing the harm that it’s done.”

“He is not a thing-” Nora fired back hotly, but was cut off.

“ _It_ is a _synth_ , Nora.”  

Maxson almost spat the word “synth”, as if ridding himself of a foul taste in his mouth. His lips curled sternly as he spread his palms like an orator hammering his point home from the pulpit.

“ _It_ is a machine.  An abomination against everything we stand for.  I know that we’ve differed on some of the finer points of Brotherhood doctrine, but this is one that you and I have always agreed on.  Synths _are not_ people.  Danse _is_ a synth.  Whatever it says, whatever apparent feelings or emotions it mimics for you, they are _not real_.  It’s just programming.  As artificial as the rest of it.”

He shook his head, a genuinely pained looked rising into his face as he approached her.  He softened his tone again, lowering his voice from the harsh invective.

“Listen to me.  I know what you’ve suffered.  I know that you need to grieve for the friend and mentor that you thought Danse was.  That’s why we’re talking about this here and not in a formal inquest. This can’t go on, Nora.  You have to let go. For your own good as much as for the Brotherhood. Let me help you.”

Maxson meant every word of what he was saying, there was no doubt in her mind about that.  He was close enough to reach out to her now and he did, laying a large hand on her shoulder as his steel colored eyes searched down into hers with all the hopeful tenacity of a zealot.  He was looking for all he was worth to see the light of realization dawn in her face as she accepted the truth.

And he was not entirely wrong.

They _had_ always agreed about the nature of synths.  Nora had never considered them human or even truly alive - not even Nick Valentine, although she liked the old prototype with the tough, streetwise cop personality.  As noble as he seemed, he was a parody of humanity - a stereotype. First and second generation synths were barely worth a second thought. It was unpleasant work to put one of the biomechanical third generation synth down, but she had listened to Danse’s reassurances and never hesitated to do it in all of her time working for the Brotherhood.  

Until it was Danse on the other end of her gun.

~~0~~

_“Got a light, Paladin?”_

_The damp bunker of the old listening post smelled of concrete dust, mold, and ozone from the now sparking and smoking defense robots that Nora had destroyed in the outer chamber.  Danse stood, half turned away from her, at the back of the old control room that was now converted into makeshift living quarters. He didn’t even look at the laser rifle slung in her hands as she entered._

_“I thought you’d kicked the habit, Knight.”_

_She knew that she should get it over with.  It would be less painful to just shoot him and leave.  Her finger was on the trigger and Danse was out of armor, more or less defenseless.  One shot and it would be done. But she had promised Haylen that she would hear him out and, seeing him standing there now, she was struck by the fierce need to hear his voice one last time._

_Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nora imagined that she heard the distant echo of Kellogg laughing at her for that little bit of cloying, saccharine weakness._

The thing about happiness, _he had said when she was wandering through those nightmare memories of his_ , is that you only know you had it when it’s gone.

_Story of my life, she thought as the corner of her mouth tipped up grimly._

_“I’m reconsidering.  At this rate, if something is going to take me out, smoking is probably the last in line.”_

_Nora stepped further into the room.  The movement made Danse turn to face her at last.  He looked exhausted, as if it had been awhile since he’d slept well.  He looked resigned. His attempt at a smile - that smile that always made her feel like everything was going to work out somehow -  only barely succeeded._

_They had been friends.  Better than friends at the end, she had to admit to herself.  For most of the last year, she and Danse had worked together almost every day.  They had shared field rations in the wilderness and rotated watches together. They had told jokes, talked over their problems, and discussed opinions.  They had watched each others’ back day in and day out, through all the close calls and decisive victories alike. Aside from Nate, she had never been closer to anyone in her life._

_Even with her weapon primed and ready to take him down, Danse was not afraid of her.  Why would he be? If anything, there was pity in his dark eyes._

_“I’m sorry that Maxson sent you to do this, but I’m not surprised.  He never did like to do his own dirty work.”_

_Nora snorted a humorous laugh that fell hollow on the room.  She shifted her weight in her boots uneasily and nodded her agreement._

_“Guess it doesn’t matter much.  Isn’t that what I’ve been doing this whole time?  Someone else’s dirty work?”_

_Even killing Kellogg had turned out to be a manipulation in the end, the circumstances arranged by her now elderly and dying son to get his revenge on the mercenary that had killed his father.  She had been played by someone almost every step of the way. Why should it be different now?_

_Another few steps brought her within three yards of Danse.  It was too close, Nora knew. He was just as skilled at hand to hand combat as he was with a gun.  There was a better than even chance that he could disarm her if he turned on her._

_Maybe that was what she was hoping for, she thought darkly.  Everything worth fighting for had turned to ash in her hands as soon as she finally reached it. If Danse’s face was the last thing that she saw in this godforsaken wasteland, she could almost be grateful to him for that.  At least it would be someone she respected and not some avenging fury._

_“You could have told me, Danse,” she sighed at last because the silence had become unbearable.  “I wouldn’t have turned you in.”_

_She didn’t try to hide the pain that crept into the words.  What was the point?_

_“I didn’t know,” he admitted quietly and for a split second, Nora saw his face almost crumple beneath the weight of what he was feeling._

_She listened to him tell her about the difficulty of knowing what was real and what was implanted into his memory.  She listened to the disappointed ache in his voice as he told her that he still felt human, though he knew that he was not.  Her finger remained on the trigger as he straightened to his full height and assured her that he would be the example, not the exception, and that he was proud of her for the Brotherhood soldier that she had become. He was grateful for the opportunity to have been her friend._

_The smile on his face as he waited for her to pull the trigger was genuine and accepting of his fate, almost encouraging.  Danse had never spoken an insincere word in all the time that she had known him. Not even when he was thanking his murderer._

_The moment to make a decision had arrived.  Nora looked him in the eyes. She owed him that._

_“You got one thing right, Paladin.  You are the best friend that I’ve ever had and it has been an honor.”_

_The mechanical sound of the fusion cell ejecting from her rifle and dropping to the floor with a clatter echoed through the room.  She lowered her weapon and, at last, returned his smile with a weak one of her own._

_“But I’ve always been a terrible soldier.”_

~~0~~

“You want to help me, Arthur?”

Nora gazed hard into the Elder’s face.  She leaned in, close enough that she could feel the heat from his skin on her cheek, and carefully, slowly enunciated her words in as calm a voice as she could muster.

“Leave. This. Be.”  

She stepped back from him, his hand sliding off of her shoulder, and shook her head.

“I’m not going to betray you or the Brotherhood.  I believe in the essential purpose of what we’re doing here.  You have Danse to thank for that, he was the one who convinced me.  Give me whatever orders you want, Arthur, I’ll be there with bells on.  I’ll kill whatever needs killing and fetch whatever needs fetching. I’ll do my damndest to be the role model that you want me to be. Just leave well enough alone.  Isn’t that a fair trade?”

The Brotherhood leader stared at her for a long moment, shocked into speechlessness before the look in his eyes changed - a terrible epiphany striking him and hardening his face into an outraged grimace.

“You’re in love with it.”

The accusation hit her like a bullet striking the chest plate of her tactical armor.  There was no defense against it. It was true, although she had only just recognized it herself a few weeks before.  

She began to respond, but Maxson’s hand shot up like a knife edge cutting through her words.  He shook his head at her slowly, as if both nauseated and horrified.

“After everything you’ve learned here, everything the Brotherhood has taught you, everything you’ve seen of the Institute and its creations - how could you be so foolish? It’s bad enough that you insisted on letting that machine go free.  I can almost sympathize with that - you’re human even if it isn’t. But to fall in love with a _synth_? You say you believe in our cause, but how could you violate our most basic tenets so completely?  How could you waste your affection on that -- that -”

“Maxson,” Nora interjected impatiently, attempting to interrupt the tirade.  

Her thoughts were racing as she felt the situation spiraling out of control, trying to find a way out of the mess, but she only succeeded in changing his course rather than interrupting it.  His glare turned thunderous as a second realization - proceeding from the first - dawned on him.

“Did you let it touch you?” he demanded.

Nora recoiled from the question before she could stop herself and Maxson took an aggressive half step towards her.  She felt her body react instinctively, arms and shoulders clenching, preparing to block if he moved to strike her, but no blow followed.  He only stared at her, the deep scar on his right cheek livid against skin that had gone pale with fury.

“Did you allow that synth to touch you?” he repeated slowly, assuming the full weight and menace of his position as Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel once again, stabbing a gloved finger at her.  “Answer me. Did you engage in sexual relations with that . . . abomination . . . knowing full well what it was?”

Nora glared back at him, more shaken than she could admit, and felt any chance of salvaging the conversation disappear.  The answer to his question was beside the point now, although with all else lost she was tempted to strike back at Maxson in the only way she knew that she could.  To tell him that, yes, she had let Danse fuck her, over and over that night in the stale darkness of his bunker when they had finally admitted their feelings for each other, and that it was the only pure, unspoiled moment of happiness that she had experienced since waking up in this terrible world.  

She would not say it, though, because she knew that the words would only drive him to vengeance.  If Maxson let her leave without instantly having her dragged to the brig it would be a miracle at this point.  The damage was already done. The only question now was whether she could end it in such a way that Danse would be safe.

“Does it matter?” she retorted bitterly.  

Her pulse was hammering in her ears, the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and she let out a deep breath, steadying herself.  The hollow, jaded smile that came to her lips felt as familiar as an an old shoe. Another inheritance from Kellogg, she thought.

“It’s been a good chat, Arthur, but I think we’re done here.  I’ll stand by my choices. I know you can’t let this slide and I won’t fight it.  I’ll be the good soldier that Danse always wanted me to be just this once. Do what you have to do, just do it to me alone.”

“You’re still trying to protect it even now.  You’ve been corrupted worse than I thought.”

The Brotherhood leader turned away from her.  Nora watched the back of his broad shoulders, waiting for the axe to fall.  Maxson had promised her no repercussions, but she couldn’t expect him to keep that promise after the bomb that he had just uncovered.  He was an all or nothing sort of man. Mercy was not a quality that he exercised often.

She needed to warn Danse to relocate somehow, but there was no chance that she could get word to him before she was intercepted even if she made a break for it now.  Haylen would get wind of the situation, no doubt, and pass the news on. That girl was sharp as a tack and Danse was like a father to her. She would look out for him when Nora couldn’t.  

Would she fight?  Probably not, Nora decided.  Her side arm was still clipped to her belt.  She could get a few shots off - maybe even kill Maxson himself if she had to and managed to get the drop on him - but there would be no point.  She would be overwhelmed no matter how well she fought and it would be a waste to kill the soldiers who would die taking her down.

Finally, Maxson turned.  His fist was pressed against his lips in consternation as his grey eyes fixed on her like live coals.  There was an eeriness to the expression, like the way the wind became hot and still and the sky turned green as poison before a radiation storm approached.  Whatever was in his head, he resolved himself to it. He stood to his full height, regarding her.

“Believe me when I say that I never wanted it to come to this,” he told her in too calm of a voice.  “I had hoped that you could be reasoned with. I had hoped that by talking it through, you would accept the truth and leave this delusion behind.  I see now that it was too optimistic to hope that I could undo those months of brainwashing with a few words. And I see that I am to blame for this, too.”

A feeling of dread crept over Nora as she waited and listened.  Maxson nodded, drawing in a deep breath, a soldier owning up his own mistakes.

“I should never have sent you there.  I should have sent someone less susceptible to that particular synth’s tactics.  I had thought that it would give you closure and clear your name of any possible suspicion.  That was a miscalculation on my part. At the very least, I should have shot the thing myself when it was clear that you had been compromised instead of bowing to my fear of losing you.  I left you vulnerable. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Despite the hardness in his features, the hawkish set of his jaw and nose, she saw his brow crease and his gaze turn regretful.

“If I had made my feelings for you more clear from the beginning, you might have come to me instead of falling prey to Danse.”

Nora felt her mouth fall open, floored at both the confession and the audacity of its timing.  She had always suspected his interest, but never considered that there were actual feelings attached to it rather than just the hormonal conceits of youth.  It had been flattering in a way and a little amusing, but she had never taken it seriously. Maxson, it seemed, had taken it very seriously. She drew in a breath and began to stammer out a response, trying to compose herself.

“Listen, Arthur, I know that we-”

He shook his head, unwilling to be distracted from what he had to say.

“We can’t change what’s already been done, but I won’t let you continue down this path of self-destruction.  You’ve been in the company of that machine for so long that you’ve forgotten what it means to be with a real, flesh and blood, human man.  Someone who can actually care for you, not just grotesquely simulate those feelings. If I have to force you to remember that and give up this unnatural fixation, then so be it.”

The implication of the statement sent a lightning bolt of horror and anger up Nora’s spine.  She backed towards the door, her hand settling close to the weapon on her hip and every part of her body primed to fight now.  Death did not frighten her. Her heart broke at the thought of Danse grieving her, but she had made her peace with death many times over by now.  She had always known that Maxson was willing to kill for his beliefs. What he was suggesting was far worse than anything she had ever thought him capable of.

“If you have to force me?” she spat back at him fiercely. “Let’s get one thing straight right now, Maxson.  Arrest me, charge me with heresy, and I’ll go quietly. March me out on the flight deck and shove me off the gantry yourself if you think you have the balls for it.  But you just try to ‘force’ me and I will send you to hell in so many pieces they’ll still be finding bits of you stuck to the ceiling months from now.”

“I would never lay a hand on you unless you permitted it,” he replied, scowling as if indignant at the implication.  He tilted his chin, feeling out the words for just a second before committing to the killing blow. His eyes narrowed with the finality of it.  “But I think that you will permit it. Because the alternative is a vertibird gunship dispatched within the hour carrying a bunker buster payload and orders to fire on anything that moves. No quarter this time.  No debate. You know I can do it. And you know that even if you warn that pet of yours, I’ll find it eventually. As long as you refuse to give up that machine, Nora, until you come to your senses, you will pay for its continued existence.  You’ve left me with few choices. Maybe this will get through to you if reason will not.”

The very temperature in the room seemed to drop.  There was nothing in Maxson’s demeanor that hinted that he was bluffing.  He never did. In all of the time that she had known him, he had never made a threat that he could not back up in spades.

“You son of a bitch,” she hissed at him quietly as a terrible, raw ache began to spread through her chest.

~~0~~

_“I like what you’ve done with the place.”_

_Nora stopped in the middle of the bunker that was now Danse’s home, setting down a pack of supplies that she had brought with her as she observed the changes._

_In the weeks that she had been away, he had cleared most of the rubble from the old control room.  Steel shelves had been dragged in and reassembled along one wall, now stacked neatly with foraged canned goods, spare parts, and munitions.  He had even dug up a few loose magazine pages and ancient US army posters to decorate the wall over the ancient steel-frame cot pushed into one corner.  The hulk of a salvaged power armor rig stood to one side, evidently in the midst of refurbishment. A radio tuned to Diamond City cheerfully bleated strains of “Crawl Out Through the Fallout” from a nearby instrumentation desk._

_She grinned back at Danse as he stepped through the hole in the wall behind her._

_“It has a certain bachelor appeal.  Not at all the lair of a dangerous fugitive.”_

_He shot her a look, but his smile ruined the effect.  Her work on Liberty Prime kept her too close to Brotherhood outposts for him to travel with her.  For the first time in months, she had been forced to head out into danger alone or with other allies while Danse stayed behind.  He hated that. He never liked to be left out of the action at the best of times and there was no concealing the fact that he was relieved to see her safe again._

_“Be it ever so humble,” the former Paladin replied and shrugged dismissively, but she noted that his eyes never left her for long and there was a warm hope in them that melted her inside._

_God, she had missed him._

_After everything that they had been through, leaving Danse behind had been hard.  There had never been a day while Nora was away that she had not thought about him, wished that he were were there with her, and worried that Maxson would renege on his decision.  Seeing him still safe and still making the best of the tragedy that had detonated everything he had known and worked for made all of the worry worth it in the end._

_Especially, she thought, given the final conversation that they had before she left last time.  Her stubborn refusal to treat him any differently, to care about him any less, had allowed Danse to accept himself, too.  Other feelings had spilled out into the open as well and they had promised to make sense of that when she returned._

_Well, she had returned._

_Before she could second guess the decision, Nora turned and closed the distance between her and Danse.  His arms wrapped just as tightly around her as she pulled him into a crushing hug. All of the tension and uncertainty dropped from her in an instant.  The world outside was still tortured and troubled, but her world within was right again._

_She kissed him on the cheek, took his hand, and let him show her around the improvements that he had made to the bunker’s defenses and amenities while he was waiting for her._

_“You don’t have to fuss over me,” he insisted later as she shooed him away from the camp stove that he had rigged up and set about making dinner for them._

_Nora grinned facetiously from where she was preparing slices of tato and fresh brahmin meat for the hissing skillet._

_“I’ve had your cooking before, Paladin.  This is self-preservation.”_

_He chuckled at that, but she could hear that he was not entirely convinced._

_“Look,” she told him, rising from her crouch and wiping her hands before settling them on her hips,“I’m not going to be anyone’s pretty little housewife again, but you can let me make you dinner once in awhile.”_

_She caught him staring when she looked up.  Danse’s eyes were fixed on her with a peculiar expression.  The bottle of Gwinnett ale that she had brought him was forgotten in his hand.  It took Nora a minute to understand why._

_She had stripped the top of her uniform jumpsuit down to the waist and tied it around her middle to be cooler and less restricted in her thin undershirt.  Her red-blonde hair, almost always bundled up out of the way, fell loose and wild around her back and shoulders. It was far from the clean, perfect impression of her best A-line dress and the painstakingly curled locks that she had worn for Nate when they were dating, but the expression on Danse’s face was precisely the same as Nate’s had been.  Admiration. Captivation. Desire. The implication made her blush exactly as it had the first time she had seen it and she smiled at him silently before resuming her cooking._

Tell me that you’re not really a man _, she thought to herself, humorously._

_When the meal was eaten, when they were warm and relaxed from the mild intoxication of a bottle of beer apiece, the sultry ambiance of Billie Holiday on the radio, and the feel of hands and bodies too long apart finally allowed to touch, the moment that they had been building towards could be avoided no longer._

_She sat astride his lap on his cot as he leaned back against the wall.  Danse had discarded his shirt and then helped her from hers. His fingers traced lazy patterns on the flesh of her sides as his palms caressed her.  He looked at her, taking in her body and mapping her with his hands as if she might vanish before his eyes._

_“I never thought that I would have someone in my life,” he admitted, honest to a fault as always.  “Everything I was, I gave to the Brotherhood. There was no room for anyone or anything else. I never questioned that until I met you.  I never thought that this would be possible.”_

_Her hands smoothed over his abdomen and up to his chest, splaying her fingers along the firm muscles beneath the skin and the faint crosshatch of dark hair.  She could feel his heartbeat there and it quickened a little as she looked up into his eyes._

_“Do you want it to be?”_

_The corner up his lips tipped up, but a little sadly.  He cupped her face, his thumb stroking across her cheek._

_“More than I can say.  What I can’t understand is why you do.”_

_“Because I know how rare this is,” she confessed, feeling a faint mistiness build behind her eyes for a moment as she remembered Nate._

_She had hardly deserved to be as happy as she had been with her husband.  There was a part of her that questioned how she could love anyone else, but another part of her knew that he would not have wanted her to be alone.  The night before he had left on his last deployment, he had told her not to let her life grind to a stop if he was lost in action. He had loved her too much for that._

_“And I know,” she continued as she leaned her forehead against Danse’s, closing her eyes as she felt his arms envelop her and the warmth of their bare skin meeting, “how easily we can lose it.  I don’t care what you are or what it means or what anyone else thinks. For whatever time we have, Danse, I just want to be with you. Can that be reason enough?”_

_~~0~~_

The only sound in Maxson’s stateroom for a long moment was the distant, dull thrum of the Prydwen’s engines.  The Brotherhood leader stood with his arms crossed, unflinching, waiting.

“So, this is what all your moralizing comes down to, is it, Arthur?” Nora mocked in a last ditch attempt to shame him into decency, although she could hear the flatness in her own voice. “All this talk about honor and humanity and how much better we are than everyone else down there, but at the end of the day it turns out that you’re basically just more raider trash with better weapons than most.”

Maxson’s eyes burned, but he did not take the bait.  He was through negotiating.

“All you have to do,” he told her carefully, “is let it go.  Danse is dead. You killed it. Forget about that thing out there.  Recommit your attention to the mission and take your anger out on the Institute. The Brotherhood will support you through this difficult time.  Do that and you have nothing to fear from me. Decide.”

She could try to run.  She could appease Maxson and swear never to lay eyes on Danse again and then go AWOL on her next mission, but she had helped the Brotherhood spread their influence through most of the Commonwealth at this point.  If Maxson could track her movements to and from Listening Post Bravo, then the chances were good that he already suspected that she would try to renege and would be ready for her.

She could agree to Maxson’s terms.  She would likely never see Danse again, but at least he would be safe.  Haylen could see that he was made aware of the situation so that he could watch out for himself and know that Nora had not just abandoned him.  Just the thought made everything within her hurt.

Or, she could refuse.  She could let Maxson do whatever disgusting thing he would do to punish her for her defiance and then carry on for as long as it took to extract herself from the situation. That might have been his object all along, to finally get the leverage over her that he needed to get what he wanted.

“If you wanted to fuck me, Arthur, you could have had the stones to try it honestly.  There was a point in time where I might even have said yes.”

Nora saw a brief instant of surprise flash across the young man’s face.

“This isn’t what I-”

“Bullshit,” she spat at him contemptuously.

An image of Danse entered her thoughts - his face when she had kissed him goodbye and the way that he had watched her leave.  She had been ready to die for him on that day that Maxson tracked her to bunker. She would still die for him if that’s what it took for him to be safe.  The humiliation of letting Maxson fuck her was temporary compared to that.

She cursed and began to undo the straps and webbing of her flightsuit.

“Get it over with.”

Maxson stared at her, shocked, as she unzipped the garment and began to extract her arms from the sleeves.  She scowled at him.

“If we’re doing this, let’s do this.  Get your clothes off.”

“That machine means so much to you that you would really-”

“Shut. Up,” she snarled as she stripped off her undershirt and flung it down hard onto the metal deck.

Maxson shucked his jacket quickly at that and started on his own flightsuit, watching her warily as she unlaced her boots and kicked them off.  The air in the stateroom was cool on her skin as Nora stepped out of her uniform and stormed across to Maxson. The look in his eyes was cryptic and she struggled with the urge to slap him - just once, just so that she could have at least drawn a little blood in vengeance for the insult.  

He was not moving quickly enough for her.  She reached out aggressively to help him, but he caught her wrist, his fingers pressing into the nerve point there hard enough to make her wince as she tried to pull away.

“Remember who’s in charge here,” he growled angrily at her and she sneered back at him.

“Fuck you.”

That seemed to clench something for Maxson.  He twisted her arm before she could defend against it and dragged her towards the bed.  Nora felt something inside of her snap, as if her skin had become power armor retracting in place around something much more easily damaged.  

She wrenched her arm out of Maxson’s grip and threw herself at him, shoving him against the wall, feeling him grapple with her in surprise as she closed on him not to fight, but to continue pulling his clothing from him.  

He might have the power to hurt her, to kill those she cared about, and force her to this nightmare choice, but he was not going to have his victory his own way.  She had not fought her way through the wasteland this last horrible year just to lay down and let herself be quietly violated on someone else’s terms.

Her nails bit hard into Maxson’s skin as, bare to the waist now, he slammed her over onto her back against the wall and pressed his weight against her to trap her there.  His breath was hot on her neck, his erection straining hard against her belly. One hand gripped her hair tightly and a stream of angry profanity escaped her lips as thick fingers pushed past the scant protection of her undergarments and invaded her core.

Nora ignored the reaction of her body, although she could feel the tingling, heavy autonomic arousal spread through her belly as her cunt tightened around Maxson’s fingers.  His face was almost touching her own, his beard prickling her cheek and she turned until her lips were next to his ear.

“Does this make you feel like a man finally, Maxson?” she taunted him in a strained whisper.  “All that power, all that control you throw around out there -- this is why you do it, isn’t it?  That’s what it takes to get your dick hard?”

What happened next happened quickly.  Nora was jerked from the wall and flung down onto the cot.  Maxson was there before she could right herself, ripping away was was left of her underwear as he mounted her.  He was not a small man, heavily built and heavily muscled and he crushed her down onto the flimsy mattress as a thick arm encircled her neck.  He hilted himself in her without waiting, driving the air from her lungs in an involuntary yawp of pain. She tried to raise her hips to accommodate his girth as he impaled her again and again.

Somewhere in the fog that descended over her, Nora was aware of her orgasm, her body shuddering and clenching reactively under Maxson’s relentless thrusts.  She could dredge up no feeling of shame for it. She would not give him that satisfaction. Instead, she rode the release, conjuring her lover into her mind, letting it be Danse instead of Maxson there above her who buried his face against her neck with a furious groan and emptied himself into her at last.

Silence descended again upon the stateroom.  Nora was still as Maxson lay on her, spent, until finally he lifted himself to sit on the edge of the narrow bed.  She rose without a word, ignoring the spill of wet seed that trickled down her leg and ignoring him. His eyes followed her as she moved to collect her clothes.

“This isn’t over,” he told her, though there was a different quality to his voice now.  The commanding aura was gone. He almost sounded dazed - baffled about what had just happened between them.  “As long as you insist on visiting that thing-”

“This keeps happening.  Yes, we covered that.”

Nora pulled her jumpsuit up around her, zipping it closed without bothering with her undershirt, which she stuffed into a cargo pocket.  She moved onto her boots.

“You’re going to have to choose one day, Nora.  The Brotherhood or Danse.”

She chuckled at that as she laced one boot and shoved her foot into the other.  She was sore inside. Every movement was painful, but she felt strangely invincible.  There was nothing that he could do to hurt her anymore short of killing her. And she knew now that he would not do that.

“I know.  But not today.”

She finished dressing and resituated her hair.  Maxson was standing now, a peculiar look on his face as he zipped up his own uniform.

“You know why I prefer Danse to you, Maxson?” she asked him a last.  He just looked at her and she shook her head. “Because synth or not, he has something that you don’t: a fucking human soul.”

She paused with her hand on the door.

“Is that all, Elder?” she asked, resuming the tone of a professional soldier.

“Dismissed, Paladin.”

~~0~~

Sanctuary had always been pretty in the fall.  

Nora walked up the broken sidewalk and nodded to unfamiliar faces that had moved in since she had last visited.  She had avoided the town for a long time, unable to live with the ghosts that peeked out at her from the ruins of her former life, but there was something new for her here now.

She approached the house that had once belonged to her and Nate.  It was a still standing, not quite the same sleek, fashionable modern home that it had been when she had first moved into it two centuries ago, but still familiar.  Someone had been hard at work patching open spaces in the roof and walls. A tinny version of “Sixty Minute Man” wafted out of the open front door and Nora smiled.

“Hey, General!”

She looked up to see Preston Garvey approaching her.  The dedicated Minuteman was grinning at her, pleased to see her again after her long absence.  He had been out dealing with a pack of super mutants when she had last visited, so it had been awhile. He was still in uniform, with his broad brimmed hat cocked on his head, and his long-barreled laser musket in hand just like always.  Some things never changed.

“Keeping a handle on things, Preston?” she asked as he stopped on the sidewalk next to her.

“Always.  You have been, too.  We saw the explosion all the way up here.  So, the Institute’s gone, just like that?”

The Institute was gone.  Her son was gone with it.

She had never been able to reconcile the grandfatherly old man in his lab coat and green cardigan vest with the chubby-cheeked baby boy that she had fallen in love with the moment that she had looked into his dark brown eyes.  She had tried, but his brand of patronizing intellectualism and good-natured disregard for the humanity of the people on the surface had been too much for her to bear in the end. Perhaps it wasn’t Shaun’s fault. She had accepted his cold anger at her in his final moments, looking down at him there on his hospital gurney just as she had looked down at him in his blue crib with the rocket ship mobile so long ago.  If she could not save her son, it seemed fitting to Nora that she, who had brought him into this world, would be the one to usher him out of it.

“That it is,” she agreed without further comment.

“Good.  I guess the Brotherhood did us as least one favor.  You still going to run with them now that the fireworks are over?”

Nora smirked at the question and looked out across the ramshackle houses that lined the street.  

There was light and power in Sanctuary again.  The generator that she had helped Sturges start months ago was up and running and power lines connected the houses in an orderly series.  She could see a fan running through the open window of the house that Sturges shared with Mama Murphy across the road. She had a feeling that she knew who had helped the mechanic set all of that up.

Maxson had kept his word, at least.  She still came and went from the Prydwen freely.  Publically, she was a model soldier. For her hand in the destruction of the Institute, she had even been promoted to Sentinel - a joke, if Nora had ever heard one, but at least she was afforded the freedom to set her own orders now unless there was something pressing to attend to.  It made it easier to slip away for a few days here and there, even though she knew that there would be a price to pay when she returned. Maxson was good to his word on that as well.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on them,” she told Preston with a shrug.

She had never told Danse about her deal with Maxson.  He didn’t need to know. The happiness that she felt every time she saw his face after being gone for awhile was not worth disrupting.  The nights that she spent with him - teasing him, getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies, and curling satisfied into his arms to sleep - washed away the darker memories of her aggressive, contentious trysts with Maxson.  The occasional bruises she could pass off as souvenirs from the battles that she continued to fight out in the Commonwealth.

She had talked Danse into moving out of his solitary bunker, though.  It wasn’t good for him to spend so much time alone and he would blend in better at one of the Minutemen settlements.  Sanctuary was far enough afield that few Brotherhood patrols or resupply runs made it out that way and she knew that Preston kept the artillery there constantly manned.  She had convinced Danse that the Minutemen could use his help, and watching the settlers at Sanctuary adapt to the former Brotherhood soldier and his particular brand of relentless efficiency was amusing to watch.

And there were other reasons.

“Well, I hope you’ll stay awhile this time,” Preston told her, shouldering his musket. “I know Danse and your boy miss you when you’re gone.  I think I saw them down by the creek a few minutes ago if you want to go find them.”

The image of it made her smile, a big soldier like Danse trooping along after the tow-headed kid that Ingram had found in the sterile warrens of the Institute just before they had evacuated to safety.  Nora still remembered her shock as the child ran up to her, calling her “mother” and begging her to take him home.

There was hardly anyone in on the Prydwen that had not heard the story of how her son had been ripped from her and how she was fighting to find him again.  Maxson had made sure of that as further ammunition to boost his people’s hatred of their foe. The only person that she had ever told about her connection with the director of the Institute, though, was Danse and even then only after his exile.  The recovery of Shaun was one more success in Maxson’s campaign of propaganda and Nora would never correct that error.

It was a sort of appropriate vengeance to think that none of the Brotherhood personnel, not even Maxson himself, had even suspected the child they ferried over to the Prydwen in the aftermath of the explosion might be a synth.

Although Maxson had encouraged her to let Shaun join the other few children on board the Prydwen as a Squire, she had relocated him to Sanctuary instead as soon as possible.  MacCready - bless his soft, sarcastic heart -  had escorted the kid there and offered to stick around until she could break away herself. Eventually, she had brought Danse there as well and, to her relief, he and Shaun had taken to each other immediately. It warmed her heart to see them play catch in the back yard or throw the ball for Dogmeat, who adored both of them. She would watch sometimes, smiling to herself, as Danse explained some bit of power armor maintenance to the boy who was obsessed with everything technological.

She had a family again.  Not the one that she had expected or hoped to find, but as close as it was possible to get in this life and that was enough.  Since synth DNA was based in a large part on her son, it was almost like a part of Nate and Shaun lived on with her anyway. Whatever safety that she had to buy from Maxson to keep that was worth it.

“I’ll let them have their adventure,” Nora told the Minuteman, smiling.  “I think I’m just going to sit for awhile. It’s good to be home.”

She exchanged nods with Preston before he continued on his patrol and then sat her bag down in the empty carport, rifling through it for her cigarettes.  The pack eluded her, but her hand grasped something unusual in the bottom of one of the inner pouches of the battered olive green satchel that she had carried along with her her since her first weeks in the Commonwealth.  Surprised, she drew out a cigar. “San Francisco Sunlights” the label read.

One of Kellogg’s.

She vaguely remembered finding it at one of his haunts while tracking him to his lair and absently tucking it into her pack in case she needed the scent for Dogmeat to get a trail from.  She had assumed that the thing was long since discarded in the chaos of her life, but here it was in her hand as a tangible reminder of everything that she had been through over the last year.

Pulling her lighter from the chest pocket of her Brotherhood uniform, she flicked it open and lit the cigar, turning the tip in the flame until it ignited and she could smell the heady, peaty,  savory-sweetness of the tobacco. She looked at it for a moment and then took a drag as she sat down on a nearby stool at Danse’s armor station. Her eyes closed as she tasted the smoke, letting it take her back to the place where all of this had begun for just a moment.

“Damn, the bastard had good taste.  Who would have thought?” she muttered to herself at last as she stood again and went to unpack the supplies and a few gifts that she had brought up for the boys.


End file.
